In the course of his career, Owen has held, and resigned from, a number of senior posts. He first quit as Labour's spokesman on defence in 1972 in protest at the Labour leader Harold Wilson's attitude to the EEC; he left the Labour Shadow cabinet over the same issue later; and over unilateral disarmament in November 1980 when Michael Foot became Labour leader. He resigned from the Labour Party when it rejected one member, one vote in February 1981 and later as Leader of the Social Democratic Party, which he had helped to found, after the party's rank-and-file membership voted to merge with the Liberal Party.

Owen was deeply affected by the Suez crisis of 1956, when Anthony Eden's Conservative government launched a military operation to retrieve the Suez Canal after Nasser's decision to nationalise it. At the time, aged 18, he was working on a labouring job before going to Cambridge.

In 1960, Owen joined the Vauxhall branch of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society. He qualified as a doctor in 1962 and began work at St Thomas's Hospital. In 1964, he contested the Torrington seat as the Labour candidate against the Conservative Party incumbent, losing in what was a traditional Conservative-Liberalmarginal. He was neurology and psychiatric registrar at St Thomas's Hospital for two years, as assistant to Dr. William Sargant, then Research Fellow on the Medical Unit doing research into Parkinsonian trauma and neuropharmacology.

At the next general election, in 1966, Owen returned to his home town and was elected Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the Plymouth Suttonconstituency. In the February 1974 general election Owen became Labour MP for the adjacent Plymouth Devonport constituency, winning it from the Conservative incumbent DameJoan Vickers by a slim margin (fewer than 500 votes). He managed to hold on to it in the 1979 general election, again by a narrow margin (1001 votes). From 1981, however, his involvement with the SDP meant he developed a large personal following in the constituency and thereafter he was re-elected as an SDP candidate with safe margins. He remained as MP for Plymouth Devonport until his elevation to a peerage in 1992.

From 1968 to 1970, Owen served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Navy in Harold Wilson's first government. After Labour's defeat in the 1970 General Election, he became the party's Junior Defence Spokesman until 1972 when he resigned with Roy Jenkins over Labour's opposition to the European Community. On Labour's return to government in March 1974, he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health before being promoted to Minister of State for Health in July 1974.

As Minister of State for Health he encouraged Britain to become "self-sufficient" in blood products such as Factor VIII, a recommendation also promoted by the World Health Organisation,[4] this was principally due to the risk of Hepatitis infection from high-risk blood donors overseas who were often paid and from "skid-row" locations.[5][6] David Owen has been outspoken that his policy of "Self-Sufficiency" was not put into place[7] and gave rise to the Tainted Blood Scandal which saw 5,000 British Haemophiliacs infected with Hepatitis C, 1,200 of those were also infected with HIV.[8] It would later be described in the House of Lords as "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the National Health Service".[9]

As Foreign Secretary, Owen was identified with the Anglo-American plan for Rhodesia, which formed the basis for the Lancaster House Agreement, negotiated by his Tory successor, Lord Carrington, in December 1979. The Contact Group sponsored UN Resolution 435 in 1978 on which Namibia moved to independence twelve years later. He wrote a book entitled Human Rights and championed that cause in Africa and in the Soviet Union. He has admitted to at one stage contemplating the assassination of Idi Amin while Foreign Secretary but settled instead to backing with money for arms purchases to President Nyerere of Tanzania in his armed attack on Uganda which led to the exile of Amin to Saudi Arabia.

However, 18 months after Labour lost power in 1979, the staunchly left-wing politician Michael Foot was elected party leader, despite vocal opposition from Labour Party moderates (including Owen), sparking a crisis over the party's future.

Michael Foot's election as Labour party leader indicated that the party was likely to become more left-wing, and in 1980 committed itself to withdrawing from the EEC without even a referendum (as Labour had carried out in 1975). Also, Labour endorsed unilateral nuclear disarmament and introduced an electoral college, for leadership elections, with 40% of the college going to a block vote of the trade unions.

Early in 1981, Owen and three other senior moderate Labour politicians – Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams – announced their intention to break away from the Labour Party to form a "Council for Social Democracy". The announcement became known as the Limehouse Declaration and the four as the "Gang of Four". The council they formed became the Social Democratic Party (SDP), with a collective leadership.[10] Although Owen was one of the founding members of the party, he was not always enthusiastic about creating a schism on the centre-left, saying to the Glasgow Herald in January 1981 that he felt "haunted by the possibility that, if the Labour Party splits, the Centre Left will never again form the Government in Britain".[11]

Twenty-eight other Labour MPs and one Conservative MP (Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler) joined the new party. In late 1981, the SDP formed the SDP-Liberal Alliance with the Liberal Party to strengthen both parties' chances in the UK's "first past the post" electoral system. The alliance performed so well that for much of the early part of 1982, it appeared that it would become a centre-left coalition government at the next election. In 1982, uneasy about the Alliance, Owen challenged Jenkins for the leadership of the SDP, but was defeated by 26,256 votes to 20,864. In the following year's General Election, the Alliance gained 25% of the vote, only slightly behind the Labour Party, but because of the first-past-the-post voting system, it won only 23 out of 650 seats. Although elected, Jenkins resigned the SDP leadership and Owen succeeded to it without a contest among the 6 remaining SDP MPs.

In 1982, during the Falklands War, Owen spoke at the Bilderberg Group advocating sanctions against Argentina.[12] Ironically, the success of the war ended any hope that SDP might have had of winning the 1983 election. The Tories were proving unpopular largely due to high unemployment and the early 1980s recession, while Labour's democratic-socialist policies were driving away moderate voters. However, Britain's success in the conflict saw Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government surge back to the top of the opinion polls, and her position was strengthened further by the end of the year as the recession ended and more voters had faith in her economic policies.[13]

Owen is widely regarded as having been, at the very least, a competent party leader. He had high popularity ratings throughout his leadership as did the SDP-Liberal Alliance. He succeeded in keeping the Party in the public eye and in maintaining its independence from the Liberals for the length of the 1983 Parliament. Moreover, under him, the SDP increased its representation from 6 to 8 seats via the by-election victories of Mike Hancock, at Portsmouth South (1984), and Rosie Barnes, at Greenwich (1987).

However, the progress of the SDP-Liberal Alliance as a whole was hampered with policy splits between the two parties, first over the miners' strike of 1984–85 where Owen and most of the SDP favoured a fairly tough line but the Liberals preferred compromise and negotiation. More significantly the Alliance had a dispute over the future of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent. Here Owen and the SDP favoured replacing of Polaris with Trident as a matter of some importance, where most Liberals were either indifferent to the issue or committed disarmers. The SDP favoured a radical social market economy, whilst the Liberals mostly favoured a more interventionist, corporate style approach. The cumulative effect of these divisions was to make the Alliance appear less credible as a potential government in the eyes of the electorate.

Moreover, Owen, unlike Jenkins, faced an increasingly moderate Labour Party under Neil Kinnock and a dynamic Conservative government. The 1987 general election was as disappointing for the Alliance as the 1983 election and it lost one seat. Nevertheless, it won over 23% of the vote - at that time, the second-largest third-placed vote in British politics since 1929.

In 1987 immediately after the election, the Liberal leader David Steel proposed a full merger of the Liberal and SDP parties and was supported for the SDP by Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers. Owen rejected this notion outright, on the grounds that he and other Social Democrats wished to remain faithful to social democracy as it was practised within Western Europe, and it was unlikely that any merged party would be able to do this, even if it was under his leadership. Nevertheless, the majority of the SDP membership supported the merger.

The Liberal Party and SDP merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD) in March 1988, renamed the Liberal Democrats in October 1989.

At the request of two of the remaining SDP MPs, John Cartwright and Rosie Barnes, Owen continued to lead a much smaller continuing SDP, with three MPs in total. The party polled well at its first election, its candidate coming a close second in the 1989 Richmond by-election, but thereafter a string of poor and ultimately disastrous by-election results followed, including coming behind the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in the Bootle by-election of May 1990, prompting Owen to wind up the party in 1990. Owen blamed the SDP's demise on the reforms which had been taking place in the Labour Party since Kinnock's election as leader in 1983.[14]

Some branches, however, continued to function using the SDP name; Bridlington's was still extant in 2006.

Lord Holme later blamed Owen for the Alliance's failure to make a breakthrough at the 1987 general election, believing that a merged party would have performed much better and possibly gained more votes and seats than Labour.[15]

After winding up the re-formed SDP, Owen announced his intention to stand down as an MP at the next General Election. He then served the remainder of his term as an independent MP and after the 1992 General Election was made a life peer, nominated by then Conservative Prime Minister, John Major, with the title "Baron Owen, of the City of Plymouth",[16] in Letters Patent dated 30 June 1992. As a member of the House of Lords, he is called "Lord Owen" and he sat as a crossbencher until 2014 (see below). Owen was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Plymouth University in 1992.

During the April 1992 election campaign, Owen writing in The Mail on Sunday newspaper advised voters to vote Liberal Democrat where they had a chance of victory and to vote Conservative rather than let Neil Kinnock become Prime Minister. Owen maintained his long-standing position that he would never join the Conservative Party, although the memoirs of at least three of John Major's cabinet ministers refer to Major being quite keen to appoint Owen to his cabinet, but threats of resignation from within the Cabinet prevented him from doing so. When asked in a conversation with Woodrow Wyatt on 18 December 1988 whether she would have Owen in her government if approached by him, Margaret Thatcher replied: "Well, not straight away. I don't think I would do it straight away. He was very good on the Northern Ireland terrorist business. He's wasting his life now. It's so tragic. He's got real ability and it ought to be used".[17] In another conversation with Wyatt on 4 June 1990 Thatcher said Owen's natural home was the Conservative Party.[18][19]
He was approached privately by Tony Blair, then leader of the Opposition, in 1996 on whether he was ready to support New Labour. Lord Owen declined mainly because he disagreed with Tony Blair's intention, as Prime Minister, to join the eurozone.[20]

In May 2005, he was approached two days before the General Election by someone very close to Tony Blair to endorse Labour. He declined, because though he did not want a Conservative government, he wanted the Liberal Democrats to do sufficiently well to ensure a greatly reduced Labour majority.[21]

In September 2007, it was widely reported in the British press that Lord Owen had met the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown and afterwards had refused to rule out supporting Labour at the next general election.[22] It later emerged that he could have been part of the GOAT (Government of all talents) initiative advising on the NHS but Lord Owen declined. In October 2009 he wrote an article in The Times predicting that the Conservatives, then well ahead in the opinion polls, were unlikely to win an outright majority. He helped create the web-based Charter 2010 to explain and promote the potential of a hung parliament. The website campaign was launched in January 2010 while the Conservatives still appeared on course to win outright. Within weeks the polls changed and the website became a major source of information about hung parliaments. In May 2010 The Sunday Times called Owen "the prophet of the coalition".

In January 2011, Owen revealed that his "heart was with Labour" and that he looked forward to the time when he could vote Labour again. He added that what hampered him in the past was the way the Labour Party elects its leader and it was very necessary for the electoral college arrangement to be reformed and he refused to rule out joining the Labour Party in the future. He vigorously opposed the Health and Social Care Bill in 2011–12. In a pamphlet, "Fatally Flawed", he demonstrated that far from the internal market, which he had championed in the 1980s, the Bill introduced an external market and he worked closely with the Labour Front Bench in the House of Lords.

In March 2014, it was revealed that Owen had donated over £7,500 to the Labour Party, following leader Ed Miliband's reforms of the party's links with trade unions. No longer eligible to sit as a crossbencher, Owen now sits in the House of Lords as an "independent social democrat".[1]

In the June 2017 General Election, Owen continued to support the Labour Party (even though he had once been a political opponent of Labour's leader, Jeremy Corbyn). He made political donations to the national Labour Party, as well as the Labour candidate in Plymouth Sutton & Devonport, Luke Pollard, who successfully won the seat.[24]
Currently, he is on the advisory board of OMFIF where he is regularly involved in meetings regarding the financial and monetary system.

In August 1992, Owen was British Prime Minister John Major's choice to succeed Lord Carrington as the EU co-chairman of the Conference for the Former Yugoslavia, along with Cyrus Vance, the former US Secretary of State as the UN co-chairman.

Private Eye, the British satirical magazine, playfully alluded towards Owen's legendary tendency towards self-destruction. "It's a lost cause", says the bubble emanating from Major's mouth. "I'm your man", says the bubble from Owen's mouth. The Labour Shadow Foreign Minister, Jack Cunningham, greeted Major's appointment of Owen in the British House of Commons by saying that the Prime Minister's choice "was regarded as somewhat eccentric by [MPs] and myself - he [Owen] is known for many qualities, but not as a mediator. Indeed he has Balkanised a few political parties himself."[25]

Owen became a joint author of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan (VOPP), in January 1993, which made an effort to move away from the presumption of ethnic partition.[26] According to America's last ambassador to Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Government were ready to accept the VOPP, but unfortunately the Clinton Administration delayed in its support, thus missing a chance to get it launched.[27] The VOPP was eventually agreed in Athens in May 1993 under intense pressure by all parties including Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić but then rejected later by the Bosnian-Serb Assembly meeting in Pale, after Karadžić insisted that the Assembly had the right to ratify the agreement. After Vance's withdrawal, Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg brokered the EU Action Plan of December 1993. They both helped the Contact Group of the US/UK/France/Germany and Russia to present its plan in the summer of 1994.

In early 1994, the European Parliament voted by 160 votes to 90, with 2 abstentions, for Owen's dismissal, but he was supported by all 15 EU Member State governments. There was a perception in America that Owen was "not fulfilling his function as an impartial negotiator".[28] Owen, however, was consistently supported by all 15 EU Member States and the German Presidency in July 1994 urged him to remain as did the French Presidency in January 1995. Owen was made a Companion of Honour for his services in the former Yugoslavia in 1994.[29]

In January 1995, Lord Owen wrote to President François Mitterrand as President of the European Union to say that he wished to step down before the end of the French presidency. At the end of May 1995, he was succeeded by the former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt. "Had I been younger, I would probably have resigned when the Americans ditched the Vance-Owen Peace Plan".[30]

Lord Owen has continued to speak out on issues of international affairs including on nuclear proliferation and constrained intervention. In 2011 he was the first politician to call for a "no-fly zone" over Libya. In an editorial on 27 February 2011 the Sunday Times said, "It was a man who has not been in office for nearly 32 years - Lord Owen, the former foreign secretary - who has been the most eloquent British voice over Libya. His call for a no-fly-zone ... struck the right note".

As former Minister of State for Health, Lord Owen has long been highly critical of previous governments for their role in and handling of the tainted blood scandal. Alleging maladministration in 2002[31] he sought to bring about an inquiry into the matter and was joined in his efforts by former Solicitor General for England and Wales Lord Archer, former Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Services Lord Jenkin and others.[32]

In 2009 the culmination of these efforts, the privately funded and independent "Archer Report" in which Lord Owen was heavily involved, published its findings[33] but was thwarted because it had no power to compel witnesses as it was not a statutory public inquiry. Successive governments have refused to hold a public inquiry[34] into the matter and continue to withhold documentation on grounds of commercial interest.[35]

During his investigation into the matter he attempted to access his archived documents and files from his time as minister. At first he was told "they couldn't find them" and was later told they had all been destroyed;[36] the exact series of events that led to the destruction of these documents remains a mystery and continues to raise questions amongst MPs such as Alistair Burt.[37] Lord Owen has regularly told the media that he is not a conspiracy theorist but that he does suspect there has been a cover-up carried out by the Civil Service[38] and that this was done after prosecutions and jail sentences were brought against government officials in France.[39][40]

In September 2016 at a film-screening of the documentary Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale, he dramatically ended a 15-minute speech on the subject proclaiming: "I have failed and I feel very miserable about it".[6]

In October 2016 the Civil Service Commission refused a request to investigate Lord Owen's destroyed documents[41] and separately the Department of Health advised that "the Department does not have any plans to make public the identity of junior officials involved in this matter".[42]

On 10 May 2017 he featured in an episode of BBC Panorama called "Contaminated Blood: The Search for the Truth".[43]

Owen had been a supporter of Britain's membership of the European Union but also opposed many of the more dramatic proposals for integration.[citation needed]

As chairman of New Europe, he was the co-leader of the 'No to the Euro' campaign with Business for Sterling, which ceased when the UK Government declared in 2005 that Euro membership was off the agenda following the defeat of the EU Constitution in referendums in France and the Netherlands.

Lord Owen continued to argue for engagement, criticising David Cameron's so-called 'veto' in December 2011 and arguing instead for a formal non-eurozone grouping with the right to join or leave the eurozone. In June 2012 Lord Owen published Europe Restructured, outlining a blueprint for restructuring the EU to allow for those countries that wish to be part of a more integrated eurozone to be facilitated while those who may only want to belong to a Single Market community are enabled to do so. He stated that a referendum on the UK's relationship with the EU is inevitable.

Lord Owen was chairman of Yukos International UK BV, a division of the former Russian petroleum company Yukos, from 2002 to 2005.[citation needed] and a member of the board of Abbott Laboratories, a US healthcare company, from 1996 to 2011. He was non-executive chairman of Europe Steel Ltd and consultant to Epion Holdings, owned by Alisher Usmanov until 2015. From 2009 to 2014 Lord Owen served on the board of Texas-based Hyperdynamics Corporation, an oil concern with an exclusive lease to an offshore area of the Republic of Guinea in west Africa..[citation needed] He also served on the board of Coats Viyella from 1994-2001.

Owen was the Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, from 1996 to 2009. He has written extensively on the interaction between illness and politics, with a particular emphasis on the 'hubris syndrome', a condition affecting those at the pinnacle of power. The concept has been most fully developed in a co-authored paper in Brain.[48] The concept of hubris syndrome has been analysed by Professor Gerald Russell.[49] Lord Owen is chairman of the Trustees of the Daedalus Trust established to promote and provide funds for the interdisciplinary study of how 'the intoxication of power' in all walks of life can affect personality and decision making.[50]

^Ronson, Jon (10 March 2001). "Who pulls the strings? (part 3)". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 July 2009. During the Falklands war, the British government's request for international sanctions against Argentina fell on stony ground. But at a Bilderberg meeting in, I think, Denmark, David Owen stood up and gave the most fiery speech in favour of imposing them. Well, the speech changed a lot of minds. I'm sure that various foreign ministers went back to their respective countries and told their leaders what David Owen had said. And you know what? Sanctions were imposed.

1.
Order of the Companions of Honour
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The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. Founded on the date as the Order of the British Empire. The order consists of the Sovereign plus no more than 65 members, additionally, foreigners from outside the realms may be added as honorary members. Membership confers no title or precedence, but those inducted into the order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters CH. Appointments can be made on the advice of Commonwealth realm prime ministers, for Canadians, the advice to the Sovereign can come from a variety of officials. The quota numbers were altered in 1970 to 47 for the United Kingdom,7 for Australia,2 for New Zealand, the quota was adjusted again in 1975 by adding 2 places to the New Zealand quota and reducing the 9 for the other countries to 7. While able to nominate candidates to the Order, New Zealand, as of 2016 those countries have nominated only politicians who have served as Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. Men wear the badge on a ribbon and women on a bow at the left shoulder. Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II List of Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour List of honorary British Knights List of people who have declined a British honour

2.
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
–
Her Majestys Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises senior politicians, who are present or former members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, the Council also holds the delegated authority to issue Orders of Council, mostly used to regulate certain public institutions. The Council advises the sovereign on the issuing of Royal Charters, which are used to grant special status to incorporated bodies, otherwise, the Privy Councils powers have now been largely replaced by the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The Judicial Committee consists of judges appointed as Privy Counsellors, predominantly Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Privy Council of the United Kingdom was preceded by the Privy Council of Scotland, the key events in the formation of the modern Privy Council are given below, Witenagemot was an early equivalent to the Privy Council of England. During the reigns of the Norman monarchs, the English Crown was advised by a court or curia regis. The body originally concerned itself with advising the sovereign on legislation, administration, later, different bodies assuming distinct functions evolved from the court. The courts of law took over the business of dispensing justice, nevertheless, the Council retained the power to hear legal disputes, either in the first instance or on appeal. Furthermore, laws made by the sovereign on the advice of the Council, powerful sovereigns often used the body to circumvent the Courts and Parliament. During Henry VIIIs reign, the sovereign, on the advice of the Council, was allowed to enact laws by mere proclamation, the legislative pre-eminence of Parliament was not restored until after Henry VIIIs death. Though the royal Council retained legislative and judicial responsibilities, it became an administrative body. The Council consisted of forty members in 1553, but the sovereign relied on a smaller committee, by the end of the English Civil War, the monarchy, House of Lords, and Privy Council had been abolished. The remaining parliamentary chamber, the House of Commons, instituted a Council of State to execute laws, the forty-one members of the Council were elected by the House of Commons, the body was headed by Oliver Cromwell, de facto military dictator of the nation. In 1653, however, Cromwell became Lord Protector, and the Council was reduced to thirteen and twenty-one members, all elected by the Commons. In 1657, the Commons granted Cromwell even greater powers, some of which were reminiscent of those enjoyed by monarchs, the Council became known as the Protectors Privy Council, its members were appointed by the Lord Protector, subject to Parliaments approval. In 1659, shortly before the restoration of the monarchy, the Protectors Council was abolished, Charles II restored the Royal Privy Council, but he, like previous Stuart monarchs, chose to rely on a small group of advisers. Under George I even more power transferred to this committee and it now began to meet in the absence of the sovereign, communicating its decisions to him after the fact. Thus, the British Privy Council, as a whole, ceased to be a body of important confidential advisers to the sovereign and it is closely related to the word private, and derives from the French word privé

3.
Social Democratic Party (UK, 1988)
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The Social Democratic Party formed in 1988 was a political party in the United Kingdom led by David Owen which lasted for only two years. The new Social and Liberal Democrats party thus gained all of the records, three sitting SDP members of parliament, —Owen, John Cartwright, and Rosie Barnes—did not join the SLD, and opted to create a new continuing Social Democratic Party. They were joined by a minority of former members of the original SDP. The party was dissolved in 1990 in the aftermath of a by-election in Bootle in which the candidate was beaten by Screaming Lord Sutchs Official Monster Raving Loony Party. The SDP was not alone in having members who rejected the merger with the Liberal Party to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, among Liberals, Michael Meadowcroft led a breakaway faction which created a new Liberal Party. The new post-merger SDP had two advantages over the Social and Liberal Democrats. Firstly, it enjoyed the support of Lord Sainsbury, owner of the Sainsbury chain of supermarkets. Secondly, its members regarded David Owen as a leader who looked and acted the part of a potential Prime Minister. The party also held the allegiance of seventeen members of the House of Lords, but despite an energetic tour of the nations university campuses by Owen, the party remained very short of active members. A party conference at Paisley Town Hall in 1989 was held behind closed doors without the television coverage to conceal the rows of empty seats. A shortage of members left the party exposed to electoral embarrassment if it stood candidates in areas where there was a lack of activists to bring out the vote, next, it contested a seat in Northern Ireland for the first time in the Upper Bann by-election. Previously, the SDP-Liberal Alliance had given support to the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the Liberal Democrats continued this policy in Upper Bann. The SDP nominated its own candidate, despite having no local organisation. However, the party found itself unable to get any significant media attention, the level of political apathy was high, and Bootle was known to be a Labour safe seat. The little media attention that the by-election attracted was focussed on a row between Labour and the Raving Loonies. He attempted to have Sutch charged with the offence of using a public house as an election campaign headquarters. The main by-election headlines in the newspapers referred to Kinnock’s Killjoys for the campaigns duration. In the event, when the votes were counted the SDP candidate, Jack Holmes, finished far behind the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, and the SDP suffered even worse publicity than Labour

4.
Social Democratic Party (UK)
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The Social Democratic Party was a centrist political party in the United Kingdom. The SDP was founded on 26 March 1981 by four senior Labour Party moderates, dubbed the Gang of Four, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, who issued the Limehouse Declaration. The four left the Labour Party as a result of the January 1981 Wembley conference which committed the party to unilateral nuclear disarmament, for the 1983 and 1987 General Elections, the SDP formed a political and electoral alliance with the Liberal Party, the SDP–Liberal Alliance. The party merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, now the Liberal Democrats, although a minority left to form a continuing SDP led by David Owen. In some areas, the Militant tendency were held to be systematically targeting weak local party branches in safe areas in order to have their own candidates selected. In Tavernes case, he had been fighting efforts by the Lincoln Constituency Labour Party to deselect him largely over his support for British membership of the European Communities. In October 1972 he resigned his seat to force a by-election in which he fought as a Democratic Labour candidate against the party candidate. Taverne won by a large margin. He founded the short lived Campaign for Social Democracy thereafter, and wrote a book about events surrounding the by-election called The Future of the Left – Lincoln, but the CFSD failed to gain nationwide support, and Taverne lost the seat at the October 1974 General Election. Some independent Social Democrats contested the October 1974 and 1979 General Elections, Tavernes Lincoln by-election campaign was also helped to a lesser degree by problems with the Conservative and Unionist Party candidate, Conservative Monday Club chairman Jonathan Guinness. Many original members of the future Social Democratic Party had been members of The Manifesto Group within the Labour Party and they argued that a new type of political force was needed to challenge the Conservative Party. They were also opposed to unilateral nuclear disarmament, an increasingly popular policy amongst members of the party. He bluntly told those assembled to vote for him and answered their questions uninformatively, at the end, one asked him why they should vote for him, and Healey answered You have nowhere else to go. Healeys arrogance convinced many that their days as members of the Labour Party were now over, ivor Crewe and Anthony King found five defectors who claimed to have voted for Foot in order to saddle Labour with an unelectable leader and make life easier in their new party. One defector, Mike Thomas, said he was tempted to send a telegraph to Healey reading Have found somewhere else to go, one notable Manifesto Group exception was its secretary, future Defence Secretary George Robertson, who was the only officer to remain. The constitution set out the establishment of a Council for Social Democracy which was, in effect, each area party was entitled to elect delegates to the CSD. A number of internal groups flourished within the new party, the most notable of which was the Tawney Society, twenty-eight Labour MPs eventually joined the new party, along with one member of the Conservative Party, Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler, MP for North West Norfolk. Williams and Jenkins were not at the time MPs, but were elected to the Commons in by-elections at Crosby, much of the partys initial membership came from the Social Democratic Alliance

5.
Roy Jenkins
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Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, OM, PC was a British Labour Party, SDP and Liberal Democrat politician, and biographer of British political leaders. The son of a Welsh trade unionist, Roy Jenkins was educated at Oxford University, elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in Harold Wilsons First Government. As Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1967–1970, he pursued a tight fiscal policy, on 8 July 1970, he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, but resigned in 1972 because he supported entry to the Common Market, while the party opposed it. In 1981, dismayed with the Labour Partys leftward swing under Michael Foot, in 1987, Jenkins was elected to succeed Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the University of Oxford following the latters death, he held this position until his death. A few months after becoming Chancellor, Jenkins was defeated in his Hillhead constituency by the Labour candidate, Jenkins accepted a life peerage and sat as a Liberal Democrat. In the late 1990s, he was an adviser to Tony Blair, Roy Jenkins died in 2003, aged 82. In addition to his career, he was also a noted historian. His A Life at the Centre is regarded as one of the best autobiographies of the later 20th century, born in Abersychan, Monmouthshire, in south-eastern Wales, as an only child, Roy Jenkins was the son of a National Union of Mineworkers official, Arthur Jenkins. His father was imprisoned during the 1926 General Strike for his involvement in disturbances. Roy Jenkins mother, Hattie Harris, was the daughter of a steelworks manager and his university colleagues included Tony Crosland, Denis Healey, and Edward Heath, and he became friends with all three, although he was never particularly close to Healey. During the Second World War, Jenkins served with the Royal Artillery and then as a Bletchley Park codebreaker, reaching the rank of captain. Having failed to win Solihull in 1945, he was elected to the House of Commons in a 1948 by-election as the Member of Parliament for Southwark Central, becoming the Baby of the House. His constituency was abolished in boundary changes for the 1950 general election and he won the seat and represented the constituency until 1977. Like Healey and Crosland, he had been a friend of Hugh Gaitskell and for them Gaitskells death. After the 1964 general election Jenkins was appointed Minister of Aviation and was sworn of the Privy Council, while at Aviation he oversaw the high-profile cancellations of the BAC TSR-2 and Concorde projects. In January 1965 Patrick Gordon Walker resigned as Foreign Secretary and in the ensuing reshuffle Wilson offered Jenkins the Department for Education and Science and he declined it, preferring to stay at Aviation. In the summer of 1965 Jenkins eagerly accepted an offer to replace Frank Soskice as Home Secretary, however Wilson, dismayed by a sudden bout of press speculation about the potential move, delayed Jenkins appointment until December. Once Jenkins took office – the youngest Home Secretary since Churchill – he immediately set about reforming the operation and organisation of the Home Office, the Principal Private Secretary, Head of the Press and Publicity Department and Permanent Under-Secretary were all replaced

6.
Bob Maclennan, Baron Maclennan of Rogart
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Robert Adam Ross Maclennan, Baron Maclennan of Rogart, PC is a British Liberal Democrat life peer. He was the last leader of the Social Democratic Party, serving during the negotiations led to its merger with the Liberal Party in 1988. He then became joint interim leader of the new party, known as the Social and Liberal Democrats before later becoming the Liberal Democrats, macLennans father, Sir Hector MacLennan, was a renowned gynaecologist and obstetrician. His mother, Isobel Adam, was also a doctor and public health activist and he was educated at Glasgow Academy, Balliol College, Oxford, Trinity College, Cambridge, and Columbia University, New York City. He is the brother to David MacLennan, Elizabeth MacLennan, and he was first elected as a member of the Labour Party and served as a junior minister in the Labour government of 1974–1979, but in 1981 defected to become a founder member of the SDP. He was one of the few SDP MPs to keep their seats in the 1983 general election, after his stint as SDP Leader in 1988, he served as a front bench spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, and as their president from 1994 until 1998. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1997, after his retirement at the 2001 General Election, he was raised to the House of Lords, elevated to a life peer as Baron Maclennan of Rogart, of Rogart in Sutherland. He is now the partys Cabinet Office spokesman in the House of Lords

7.
James Callaghan
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As Prime Minister, he had some successes, but was chiefly remembered for the Winter of Discontent in 1978–79. During a very cold winter, his battle with trade unions led to strikes that seriously inconvenienced the public. On 18 November 1967, the government devalued the pound sterling and he sent the British Army to support the police in Northern Ireland, after a request from the Northern Ireland Government. After Labour lost the 1970 election, Callaghan played a key role in the Shadow Cabinet, when Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigned in 1976, Callaghan defeated five other candidates to be elected as his replacement. This was followed by a defeat in the general election. Callaghan was born at 38 Funtington Road, Copnor, Portsmouth, England and he was named after his father, also James Callaghan, who was a Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer. He had a sister, Dorothy Gertrude Callaghan. He attended Portsmouth Northern Secondary School and he gained the Senior Oxford Certificate in 1929, but could not afford entrance to university and instead sat the civil service Entrance Exam. At the age of 17, Callaghan left to work as a clerk for the Inland Revenue, while at the Inland Revenue offices in Kent, in 1931, he joined the Maidstone branch of the Labour Party. In 1934, he was transferred to Inland Revenue offices in London, laski encouraged him to stand for Parliament, although later on he requested Callaghan several times to study and lecture at the LSE. Callaghan joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as an Ordinary Seaman in World War II from 1942 where he served in the East Indies Fleet and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in April 1944. While training for his promotion, his examination revealed that he was suffering from tuberculosis so he was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar in Gosport near Portsmouth. After he recovered, he was discharged and assigned to duties with the Admiralty in Whitehall and he was assigned to the Japanese section and wrote a service manual for the Royal Navy The Enemy Japan. Callaghan would become the last British prime minister to be an armed forces veteran, whilst on leave, Callaghan was selected as a Parliamentary candidate for Cardiff South. He narrowly won the party ballot with twelve votes against the next highest candidate George Thomas with eleven. During 1945 he was assigned to the East Indies Fleet and served on HMS Queen Elizabeth in the Indian Ocean, after VE Day, along with other prospective candidates he returned to the United Kingdom to stand in the general election. Labour won a victory on 26 July 1945 bringing Clement Attlee to power. Callaghan won his Cardiff South seat in the 1945 UK general election and he defeated the sitting Conservative incumbent candidate, Sir Arthur Evans, by 17,489 votes to 11,545

8.
Tom King, Baron King of Bridgwater
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Thomas Jeremy King, Baron King of Bridgwater, CH, PC is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet from 1983–92 and he was made a life peer in 2001. King served as an officer in the Somerset Light Infantry and during period of national service he was seconded to the Kings African Rifles. King was elected to Parliament at the 1970 Bridgwater by-election, following the death of the sitting MP, King was brought into the Cabinet in 1983 by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Kings career in the Cabinet may appear odd to some due to his many quick moves between departments. King never had a public profile compared to other members of the Cabinet. King went on to serve as Defence Secretary under Prime Minister John Major during the Gulf War, King left the House of Commons at the 2001 general election, and was made a life peer as Baron King of Bridgwater. He now sits in the House of Lords and he serves as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Partys Policy Group on National and International Security, which was set up by David Cameron in 2006. King was the subject of a song in the satirical ITV programme Spitting Image in which he was depicted as the Invisible Man during his term as Employment Secretary, hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by Tom King

9.
Merlyn Rees
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He served in the RAF the University of Nottingham Air Squadron during World War II, becoming a squadron leader at 25. He attended the London School of Economics where he received BSc and MSc and he was appointed schoolmaster at his old school in Harrow in 1949, teaching economics and history. He taught for years, during which time he was three times an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Harrow East, in 1955,1959, and in a 1959 by-election. He was a member of the Institute of Education at the University of London from 1959 to 1962, at a by-election in 1963, he stood successfully as the Labour candidate for Leeds South, succeeding Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, who had died in office. He held the seat until he stepped down from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, the constituency was renamed as Morley and Leeds South in 1983. He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from March 1974 until September 1976, for two years before the Labour government came to power in 1974 he had been Labour Party spokesman on Northern Ireland. Rees wrote of his views on Northern Ireland in, Northern Ireland and he was president of the Video Standards Council from 1990 and was the first Chancellor of the University of Glamorgan, a position he held from 1994 to 2002. He suffered injuries in a number of falls, and failing to recover from these, fell into a coma and he was survived by his wife Colleen and three sons. Merlyn Rees Avenue in Morley, West Yorkshire is named after Rees, Merlyn Rees Community High School in Belle Isle, Leeds was named after Rees until its merger with Mathew Murray Comprehensive School in 2006 when it was renamed South Leeds High School. Belfast years remembered for vacillation in face of loyalist strike, wakefieldtoday. co. uk. Your Online Guide to Yorkshire People. Merlyn Rees, Northern Ireland, a perspective, London. Hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by Merlyn Rees Merlyn Rees Catalogue of the Merlyn-Rees papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics

10.
Francis Pym
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Francis Leslie Pym, Baron Pym, MC, PC was a British politician. He was Member of Parliament representing the constituencies of Cambridgeshire and South East Cambridgeshire, Pym was born at Penpergwm Lodge, near Abergavenny in Monmouthshire. His father, Leslie Pym, was also a Member of Parliament, while his grandfather and he was not a descendant of the 17th century Parliamentarian John Pym as has been commonly held. He was educated at Eton, before going on to Magdalene College, Cambridge, for much of the Second World War, Pym served in North Africa and Italy as a captain and regimental adjutant in the 9th Lancers. He was awarded the Military Cross, and he ended his service as a major. Pym was a director and landowner before he went into politics. Pym entered politics as a member of Herefordshire County Council in 1958 and he contested Rhondda West without success in 1959 and entered Parliament in 1961 at a by-election as Member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire. He held the seat until 1983, and was MP for Cambridgeshire South East 1983–87 and he became foreign secretary during the Falklands War in 1982 following Lord Carringtons resignation, but was removed by Margaret Thatcher in 1983 after her second election victory. Pym was a member of the Wets, Tories opposed to Thatcherism. During the 1983 general election campaign he said on the BBCs Question Time that Landslides dont on the whole produce successful governments and this was publicly repudiated by Margaret Thatcher and he was sacked after the election. Shortly afterwards, he launched a group called Conservative Centre Forward to argue for more centrist. But with Thatcher at the height of her powers, it was unsuccessful and he stood down at the 1987 election and was created a life peer as Baron Pym, of Sandy in the County of Bedfordshire on 9 October 1987. He was the author of The Politics of Consent published in 1984 after he left office, the book is a guide to the Wets opposition to Margaret Thatcher, both to her leadership style and policies. He was portrayed by Jeremy Child in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteiss The Falklands Play and by Julian Wadham in the 2011 film, Pym died in Sandy, Bedfordshire on 7 March 2008 after a prolonged illness, aged 86

11.
Peter Shore
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His idiosyncratic left-wing nationalism led to comparison with the French politician Jean-Pierre Chevènement. Born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, Shore was the son of a Merchant Navy captain and was brought up in a middle-class environment, during the later stages of World War II he served in the Royal Air Force, spending most of his time in India. He had specialised in political economy during part of his degree, Shore was only briefly a follower of Hugh Gaitskell, his adherence to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1958 led to a breach in relations for several years. He became close to Harold Wilson after Wilson had been elected as party leader, at the last minute, he was selected to fight the safe seat of Stepney in the election, which he easily won. Shore was responsible for drafting the 1966 and 1970 election manifestos, Shores job as Wilsons PPS kept them in close contact and in August 1967, Shore became a member of the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. This Department had been created by Wilson to undertake long-term planning of the economy, Shore declared immediately his belief in state-controlled economic planning, together with the regulation of prices and wages. Early in 1968, the responsibility for prices and incomes was transferred to another department, the Treasury had never approved of the creation of the Department for Economic Affairs and began reasserting its influence, depriving it of any significant power. The Department was wound up in October 1969, at the same time, Shore sided with those in cabinet who were opposed to Barbara Castles White Paper, In Place of Strife. In a conversation with Richard Crossman at the time, Wilson was frustrated with Shore, Shore was retained in the Cabinet as a Minister without Portfolio and Deputy Leader of the House of Commons. He played a key part, behind the scenes, in planning the Labour Partys unsuccessful 1970 general election campaign, in opposition, Shore was appointed as spokesman on Europe, taking the lead in opposing Edward Heath application to join the European Economic Community. Shore had already convinced that membership of the EEC would be a disaster because it would stop the British government from taking necessary economic action. However, due to organisation by pro-EEC Labour backbenchers, Heath was able to steer his policy successfully through Parliament, when Wilson returned to government in 1974, Shore was appointed as Secretary of State for Trade. Shore participated in the discussions without believing that any new terms would be acceptable, the results of the 1975 Referendum, giving a two-to-one majority in favour of remaining a member of the EEC, damaged Shore along with the other dissenting ministers. This move was a promotion but involved him in political controversy. He called on authorities to cut spending and waste. Shore also launched a campaign to revitalise the inner cities of Britain, Shore became a fervent advocate of the British nuclear deterrent for the last three decades of his life, but in 1958 he had been an active member of CND. By the mid-1970s, while continuing to condemn American foreign policy in Vietnam and Chile, he had more supportive of NATO. When the Labour Party went into opposition in 1979, Shore was made Shadow Foreign Secretary and he was persuaded to stand as a candidate in the election of a new party leader in November 1980 by Michael Foot who thought he was the best-placed soft-left candidate to defeat Denis Healey

12.
Anthony Crosland
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Charles Anthony Raven Crosland, otherwise Tony Crosland or C. A. R. Crosland, was a British Labour Party politician and author and he served as Member of Parliament for South Gloucestershire and later for Great Grimsby. A prominent socialist intellectual, he one of the Labour Partys revisionists on the right. His highly influential book The Future of Socialism argued against many Marxist notions and he offered positive alternatives to both right and left wings of his Labour Party. He downplayed public ownership of the means of production – the classic socialist formulation – and argued instead for making the highest priority the end of poverty and he led the Labour battle to replace grammar schools with comprehensive schools that did not sort students at age 11. As foreign secretary he promoted détente with the Soviet Union, Crosland was born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex. His father, Joseph Beardsall Crosland, was an official at the War Office. Both his parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren and his maternal grandfather was Frederick Edward Raven, founder of the Raven Exclusive Brethren and secretary of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. He grew up in North London and was educated at Highgate School and at Trinity College and he then became an Oxford University don tutoring Economics. Notable names Crosland taught at Oxford were Tony Benn, Norris McWhirter, Crosland, who had been talent-spotted by Hugh Dalton, was chosen as a Labour candidate in December 1949 to fight the next general election. He entered Parliament at the February 1950 general election, being returned for the South Gloucestershire constituency and he held that seat until the 1955 general election, when he was defeated at Southampton Test. Crosland returned to the House of Commons at the 1959 general election when he was elected for Grimsby and he was, like Roy Jenkins and Denis Healey, a friend and protégé of Hugh Gaitskell, and together they were regarded as the modernisers of their day. Just over two years earlier Wilson had challenged Gaitskell for the party leadership, Crosland nominated and voted for James Callaghan in the leadership contest caused by Gaitskells death on 18 January 1963. He rationalised his decision to back Callaghan on the basis that We have to choose between a crook and a drunk, however, Callaghan was eliminated after obtaining 41 votes, the margin in votes between Wilson and Brown in the final ballot. Wilson won by 144 votes to Browns 103 on 14 February 1963, although critical of Harold Wilson, Crosland was angry with Wilson for challenging Gaitskell in 1960 for the party leadership, Crosland respected him as a political operator. Under Wilson, Crosland was first appointed Browns deputy in October 1964, in November 1964 Crosland and Brown told Wilson and Callaghan that ruling out devaluation was a mistake in the face of the economic crisis then under way. However, Crosland was not Browns deputy for long, on 22 January 1965 Wilson appointed Crosland Secretary of State for Education and Science. Croslands crusade was a success—it was popular local government, by 1979 over 90% of the students were in comprehensive schools

13.
Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington
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He is the last surviving member of the 1951–55 government of Winston Churchill, the Eden government, and the Macmillan government and of the cabinets of Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath. Carrington was Foreign Secretary in 1982 when the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina and he took full responsibility for the failure of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to foresee this and resigned. As Secretary General of NATO, he helped prevent a war between Greece and Turkey in 1987, Carrington is the only son of the 5th Baron Carrington by his wife, the Hon. Sybil Marion Colville, a daughter of Charles Colville, 2nd Viscount Colville of Culross. He is a great-nephew of the Liberal statesman Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire, and also of politician and courtier the Hon. He was educated at two independent schools, Sandroyd School from 1928–1932, at the based in the town of Cobham, Surrey. Following Sandhurst, Carrington was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards as a lieutenant on 26 January 1939. After the war, Carrington remained in the army until 1949, in 1938, Carrington succeeded his father as 6th Baron Carrington. Although he became eligible to take his seat in the House of Lords on his 21st birthday in 1940, he was on service at the time. The latter year Carrington was appointed High Commissioner to Australia, a post he held until October 1959 and he was also appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire on 2 July 1951. He became a Privy Counsellor in 1959, from 1964 to 1970 he was Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. Carrington had become Shadow Defence Secretary in 1968 following the dismissal of Enoch Powell from the following his controversial Rivers of Blood speech on immigration. He also served as Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1972 to 1974, Carrington was again Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords from 1974 to 1979. In 1979 he was made Foreign Secretary and Minister for Overseas Development as part of the first Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher spoke very highly of Carrington, stating Peter had great panache and the ability to identify immediately the points in any argument. We had disagreements, but there were never any hard feelings and he would later express his support for Mugabe over Smith. He was Foreign Secretary in 1982 when the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina and he took full responsibility for the complacency and failures in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to foresee this development and resigned. Lord Carrington then served as Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988 and he was also appointed Chancellor of the Order of St Michael and St George on 1 August 1984, serving until June 1994. In 1991, he presided over diplomatic talks about the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and attempted to pass a plan that would end the wars and he also chaired the Bilderberg conferences for several years in the late 1990s, being succeeded in 1999 by Étienne Davignon

14.
Roy Hattersley
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Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley, PC, FRSL is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook for 33 years from 1964 to 1997 and he served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992. Hattersley was born on 28 December 1932 in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, to Enid Brackenbury and Frederick Hattersley and his mother was a city councillor, and later served as Lord Mayor of Sheffield. Hattersley was a socialist and Labour supporter from his youth, electioneering at the age of 12 for his local MP and city councillors and he won a scholarship to Sheffield City Grammar School and went from there to study at the University of Hull. Having been accepted to read English at the University of Leeds, Hattersley became chairman of the new club and later treasurer, and he went on to chair the National Association of Labour Student Organisations. He also joined the executive of the IUSY, after graduating Hattersley worked briefly for a Sheffield steelworks and then for two years with the Workers Educational Association. He married his first wife Molly, who became a headteacher, in 1956 he was elected to the City Council as Labour representative for Crookesmoor and was, very briefly, a JP. On the Council he spent time as chairman of the Public Works Committee and his aim became a Westminster seat, and he was eventually selected for Labour to stand for election in the Sutton Coldfield constituency but lost to the Conservative Geoffrey Lloyd in 1959. He kept hunting for prospective candidacies, applying for twenty-five seats over three years, in 1963 he was chosen as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the multi-racial Birmingham Sparkbrook constituency and facing a Conservative majority of just under 900. On 16 October 1964 he was elected by a majority of 1,254 votes, at first he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Margaret Herbison, the Minister for Pensions. His maiden speech was on a housing subsidies bill, still a Gaitskellite, he also joined the 1963 Club. He also wrote his first Endpiece column for The Spectator, despite the support of Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland he did not gain a ministerial position until 1967, joining Ray Gunter at the Ministry of Labour. He was reportedly disliked by Prime Minister Harold Wilson as a Jenkinsite, the following year he was promoted to Under Secretary in the same ministry, now led by Barbara Castle, and become closely involved in implementing the unpopular Prices and Incomes Act 1966. In 1969 after the fiasco over In Place of Strife he was promoted to deputy to Denis Healey, one of his first jobs, while Healey was hospitalised, was to sign the Army Board Order – putting troops into Northern Ireland. The Labour defeat of 1970 ended six years of Labour government, Hattersley was to hold his seat – often increasing his majority – but for the next twenty-six years as MP he was to spend twenty one in Opposition. He was appointed Deputy Foreign Affairs Spokesman, again under Healey and he also took a Visiting Fellowship to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. During this time he became an enthusiastic supporter of the Common Market. For standing by the party Hattersley was appointed Shadow Defence Secretary 1972 to 1973, in the Wilson government of 1974 he was appointed the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and in the 1975 New Year Honours, he was sworn of the Privy Council

15.
Harold Wilson
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James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, PC, FRS, FSS was a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976. Wilson narrowly won the 1964 election, going on to win an increased majority in a snap 1966 election. Wilsons first period as Prime Minister coincided with a period of low unemployment and relative economic prosperity, in 1969 Wilson sent British troops to Northern Ireland. After losing the 1970 general election to Edward Heath, he spent four years as Leader of the Opposition before the February 1974 general election resulted in a hung parliament. A period of crisis was now beginning to hit most Western countries. He took little action to pursue the Labour Party constitutions stated dedication to such nationalisation, Labour Party historians see his years in office as lost opportunities for major reforms. However, in keeping with the mood of the 1960s his government sponsored liberal changes in a number of social areas and his stated ambition of substantially improving Britains long-term economic performance remained largely unfulfilled. He lost his energy and drive in his second government 1974–76 and accomplished little as the split over Europe. Wilson was born at 4 Warneford Road, Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England and he came from a political family, his father James Herbert Wilson was a works chemist who had been active in the Liberal Party and then joined the Labour Party. His mother Ethel was a schoolteacher before her marriage, and her brother, when Wilson was eight, he visited London and a later-to-be-famous photograph was taken of him standing on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street. He was a supporter of his football club, Huddersfield Town. Wilson won a scholarship to attend Royds Hall Grammar School, his grammar school in Huddersfield in Yorkshire. In December 1930, his father, working as an industrial chemist, was made redundant and he moved to Spital on the Wirral, Cheshire in order to do so. Wilson was educated in the Sixth Form at the Wirral Grammar School for Boys, at Oxford, Wilson was moderately active in politics as a member of the Liberal Party but was strongly influenced by G. D. H. Cole. He graduated in PPE with an outstanding first class Bachelor of Arts degree, with alphas on every paper in the examinations. Biographer Roy Jenkins says, Academically his results put him among prime ministers in the category of Peel, Gladstone, Asquith, and no one else. What he was superb at was the assimilation of knowledge, combined with an ability to keep it ordered in his mind. He continued in academia, becoming one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21 and he was a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a Research Fellow at University College

16.
Morys Bruce, 4th Baron Aberdare
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Morys George Lyndhurst Bruce, 4th Baron Aberdare KBE PC DL was a Conservative politician, and from 1999 until his death, one of ninety-two elected hereditary peers in the British House of Lords. He was the eldest son of Clarence Bruce, 3rd Baron Aberdare, and Margaret Bethune Black, Bruce was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, where he read Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He joined the J. Arthur Rank Organisation in 1947, working there for two years before moving to the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he worked between 1949 and 1956. In 1970, he became Minister of State for the Department of Health and Social Security, in 1974, he was appointed to the Privy Council, between 1976 and 1992, he served as Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords. In 1984, he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, on 24 August 1992, he officially opened Chester Citys new football stadium, the Deva Stadium. He served as president of the Tennis and Rackets Association from 1972 until 2004, during his tenure there was a significant expansion in both real tennis and rackets, and a number of new courts were built while several others were re-opened. His book, The JT Faber Book of Tennis and Rackets, is the most comprehensive reference for these sports. Lord Aberdare was President of the London Welsh Trust, which runs the London Welsh Centre, from 1959 until 1962, in 1946 he married Maud Helen Sarah Dashwood, daughter of Sir John Lindsay Dashwood, 10th Baronet, and Helen Moira Eaton

17.
Plymouth Devonport (UK Parliament constituency)
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Plymouth, Devonport was, from 1832 until 2010, a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It covered part of the city of Plymouth in South West England, the constituency was created as Devonport in 1832, and elected two members until 1918, when the number was reduced to one. Following the amalgamation of Devonport into Plymouth, the constituency was renamed as Plymouth, Devonport has had a number of prominent MPs, including Leslie Hore-Belisha, Michael Foot, and the former SDP leader David Owen. One of its longest serving MPs was the Conservative Dame Joan Vickers, 1918-1950, The County Borough of Plymouth wards of Ford, Keyham, Molesworth, Nelson, St Aubyn, and St Budeaux. 1955-1974, The County Borough of Plymouth wards of Drake, Ernesettle, Ford, Molesworth, Nelson, St Andrew, St Aubyn, St Budeaux, St Peter, and Stoke. 1974-1983, The County Borough of Plymouth wards of Ernesettle, Ford, St Andrew, St Aubyn, St Budeaux, St Peter, 1983-1997, The City of Plymouth wards of Budshead, Estover, Ham, Honicknowle, Keyham, St Budeaux, and Southway. 1997-2010, The City of Plymouth wards of Budshead, Eggbuckland, Estover, Ham, Honicknowle, Keyham, St Budeaux, from 1950 to 1983, the constituency included Plymouth city centre. General Election 1914/15, Another General Election was required to place before the end of 1915. This constituency underwent boundary changes between the 1992 and 1997 general elections and thus change in share of vote is based on a notional calculation, list of Parliamentary constituencies in Devon Craig, F. W. S

18.
Plymouth Sutton (UK Parliament constituency)
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Plymouth, Sutton was, from 1918 until 2010, a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election, Plymouth Sutton covered parts of the city of Plymouth, in South West England, and was first contested at the 1918 general election. In a by-election in 1919, it became the constituency in the UK to elect a female MP. Three of its MPs have been members of the Astor family, a more recent prominent MP was the flamboyant Conservative Alan Clark, who represented Plymouth Sutton from 1974 until 1992. 1918-1950, The County Borough of Plymouth wards of Charles, Compton, Friary, Laira, St Andrew, Sutton, and Vintry. 1955-1974, The County Borough of Plymouth wards of Charles, Compton, Crownhill, Efford, Friary, Mount Gould, Peverell, Sutton, Tamerton, and Trelawney. 1974-1983, The County Borough of Plymouth wards of Crownhill, Efford, Mount Gould, Plympton Erle, Plympton St Mary, Plymstock Dunstone, Plymstock Radford, and Sutton. 1983-1997, The City of Plymouth wards of Efford, Eggbuckland, Mount Gould, Plympton Erle, Plympton St Mary, Plymstock Dunstone, 1997-2010, The City of Plymouth wards of Compton, Drake, Efford, Mount Gould, St Peter, Stoke, Sutton, and Trelawny. The 1997 boundary changes were superficially helpful to Labour in this constituency, as such the seat from 1997 until 2010 was closer in its wards to the defunct marginal seat of Plymouth Drake. Endorsed by the Coalition Government General Election 1939/40, Another General Election was required to place before the end of 1940. List of Parliamentary constituencies in Devon Craig, F. W. S

19.
Alan Clark
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Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was a British Conservative Member of Parliament, author and diarist. He served as a minister in Margaret Thatchers governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade and Defence. He was the author of books of military history, including his controversial work The Donkeys. Clark became known for his flamboyance, wit and irreverence, norman Lamont called him the most politically incorrect, outspoken, iconoclastic and reckless politician of our times. When he died after radiation therapy for a tumour, his family said Clark wanted it to be stated that he had gone to join Tom. Clark was born at 55 Lancaster Gate, London, the son of art historian Kenneth Clark, who was of Scottish ancestry, and his wife Elizabeth Winifred Clark. His sister and brother, fraternal twins Colette and Colin, were born in 1932. At the age of six he went as a day boy to Egerton House, a school in Marylebone. Clark was one of the seventy boys rescued when the building was destroyed by fire in May 1939. In September 1940, with the Luftwaffe threatening south east England, from there he went to Eton College in January 1942. In February 1946 while at Eton he joined the Territorial training regiment of the Household Cavalry based at Windsor and he then went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Modern History under Hugh Trevor-Roper, obtaining a third-class honours degree. After Oxford he wrote articles for the press before he went on to read for the bar. He was called to the bar in 1955 but did not practise, instead, he became a military historian. Haigs own diaries are used to demonstrate how Haig positioned himself to take over command, Clark does not reflect on Haigs performance as Commander-in-Chief or on the battles of 1916 and 1917. The books title was drawn from the expression Lions led by donkeys which has widely used to compare British soldiers with their commanders. In 1921 Princess Evelyn Blücher published her memoirs, which attributed the phrase to the German GHQ in 1918, Clark was unable to find the origin of the expression. He prefaced the book with a dialogue between two generals and attributed the dialogue to the memoirs of German general Erich von Falkenhayn. This invention has provided an opportunity for critics of The Donkeys to condemn the work

20.
Plympton
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It was an ancient stannary town, an important trading centre in the past for locally mined tin, and a former seaport. Plympton still has its own centre, and is itself an amalgamation of several villages, including St Marys, St Maurice, Colebrook, Woodford, Newnham, Langage. Although the name of the town appears to be derived from its location on the River Plym, as J. Brooking Rowe pointed out in 1906, the town is not and never was sited on the river. So Plympton would have the meaning Plum-tree farm, alternatively, Cornish derivations also give ploumenn meaning plum and plom meaning lead - possibly related to Latin plombum album or tin. The local civic association, however, suggests a derivation from the Celtic Pen-lyn-dun. By the early 13th century, the River Plym was named from a back-formation from this name and nearby Plymstock. This later led to the naming of the port created at the rivers mouth when the river estuary silted up too much for the monks to sail up river to Plympton any longer. Near Plympton is the Iron Age hill fort of Boringdon Camp, Plympton is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as follows, ”The King holds Plympton. TRE it paid geld for two and a half hides, there is land for 20 ploughs. In demesne are two ploughs and six slaves and 5 villans and 12 bordars with 12 ploughs, there are 6 acres of meadow and 20 acres of pasture, woodland one league long and a half broad. It renders £13 10s by weight, beside this land the canons of the same manor hold 2 hides. There is land for 6 ploughs, there 12 v have 4 ploughs. Note, Domesday book measurements are informed best guess only and this is due to the outdated measurements not being truly translatable to those in modern use. They are, as stated in the source, a rather than original. Plympton was the site of an important priory founded by William Warelwast in the early 12th century, the members were Augustinian canons and the priory soon became the second richest monastic house in Devon. The gatehouse of the priory is still in existence, in 1872 it was recorded that the gatehouse, kitchen and refectory were still in good condition. Richard de Redvers was granted the barony of Plympton, with caput at Plympton Castle, by King Henry I. His family later became Earls of Devon and their lands, including Plympton, and titles were later inherited by the Courtenay family, feudal barons of Okehampton

21.
Devon
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Devon, also known as Devonshire, which was formerly its common and official name, is a county of England, reaching from the Bristol Channel in the north to the English Channel in the south. It is part of South West England, bounded by Cornwall to the west, Somerset to the northeast, combined as a ceremonial county, Devons area is 6,707 km2 and its population is about 1.1 million. Devon derives its name from Dumnonia, which, during the British Iron Age, Roman Britain, the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain resulted in the partial assimilation of Dumnonia into the Kingdom of Wessex during the eighth and ninth centuries. The western boundary with Cornwall was set at the River Tamar by King Æthelstan in 936, Devon was constituted as a shire of the Kingdom of England thereafter. The north and south coasts of Devon each have both cliffs and sandy shores, and the bays contain seaside resorts, fishing towns. The inland terrain is rural, generally hilly, and has a low density in comparison to many other parts of England. Dartmoor is the largest open space in southern England at 954 km2, to the north of Dartmoor are the Culm Measures and Exmoor. In the valleys and lowlands of south and east Devon the soil is fertile, drained by rivers including the Exe, the Culm, the Teign, the Dart. As well as agriculture, much of the economy of Devon is linked with tourism, in the Brittonic, Devon is known as Welsh, Dyfnaint, Breton, Devnent and Cornish, Dewnens, each meaning deep valleys. One erroneous theory is that the suffix is due to a mistake in the making of the original letters patent for the Duke of Devonshire. However, there are references to Defenascire in Anglo-Saxon texts from before 1000 AD, the term Devonshire may have originated around the 8th century, when it changed from Dumnonia to Defenascir. Kents Cavern in Torquay had produced human remains from 30–40,000 years ago, Dartmoor is thought to have been occupied by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer peoples from about 6000 BC. The Romans held the area under occupation for around 350 years. Devon became a frontier between Brittonic and Anglo-Saxon Wessex, and it was absorbed into Wessex by the mid 9th century. This suggests the Anglo-Saxon migration into Devon was limited rather than a movement of people. The border with Cornwall was set by King Æthelstan on the east bank of the River Tamar in 936 AD, the arrival of William of Orange to launch the Glorious Revolution of 1688 took place at Brixham. Devon has produced tin, copper and other metals from ancient times, Devons tin miners enjoyed a substantial degree of independence through Devons Stannary Parliament, which dates back to the 12th century. The last recorded sitting was in 1748, agriculture has been an important industry in Devon since the 19th century

22.
Labour Party (UK)
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The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Labour later served in the coalition from 1940 to 1945. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan. The Labour Party was last in government from 1997 to 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a majority of 179. Having won 232 seats in the 2015 general election, the party is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the party also organises in Northern Ireland, but does not contest elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Labour Party is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance. In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party, the first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. In the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates, Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups. Hardies roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, the meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and it had no single leader, and in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 Khaki election came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively, only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful, Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby. Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, the judgement effectively made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. In their first meeting after the election the groups Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name The Labour Party formally, the Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal Government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement, the Peoples History Museum in Manchester holds the minutes of the first Labour Party meeting in 1906 and has them on display in the Main Galleries. Also within the museum is the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, the governing Liberals were unwilling to repeal this judicial decision with primary legislation

23.
House of Lords
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The House of Lords of the United Kingdom, referred to ceremonially as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Unlike the elected House of Commons, all members of the House of Lords are appointed, the membership of the House of Lords is drawn from the peerage and is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. The Lords Spiritual are 26 bishops in the established Church of England, of the Lords Temporal, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. However, they include some hereditary peers including four dukes. Very few of these are female since most hereditary peerages can only be inherited by men, while the House of Commons has a defined 650-seat membership, the number of members in the House of Lords is not fixed. There are currently 805 sitting Lords, the House of Lords is the only upper house of any bicameral parliament to be larger than its respective lower house. The House of Lords scrutinises bills that have approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends Bills from the Commons, while it is unable to prevent Bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay Bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the House of Commons that is independent from the electoral process, Bills can be introduced into either the House of Lords or the House of Commons. Members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, the House of Lords has its own support services, separate from the Commons, including the House of Lords Library. The Queens Speech is delivered in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, the House also has a Church of England role, in that Church Measures must be tabled within the House by the Lords Spiritual. This new parliament was, in effect, the continuation of the Parliament of England with the addition of 45 MPs and 16 Peers to represent Scotland, the Parliament of England developed from the Magnum Concilium, the Great Council that advised the King during medieval times. This royal council came to be composed of ecclesiastics, noblemen, the first English Parliament is often considered to be the Model Parliament, which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and representatives of the shires and boroughs of it. The power of Parliament grew slowly, fluctuating as the strength of the monarchy grew or declined, for example, during much of the reign of Edward II, the nobility was supreme, the Crown weak, and the shire and borough representatives entirely powerless. In 1569, the authority of Parliament was for the first time recognised not simply by custom or royal charter, further developments occurred during the reign of Edward IIs successor, Edward III. It was during this Kings reign that Parliament clearly separated into two chambers, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The authority of Parliament continued to grow, and, during the fifteenth century

24.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website

25.
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
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Sidney Sussex College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The college was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex and it was from its inception an avowedly Protestant foundation, some good and godlie moniment for the mainteynance of good learninge. In her will, Lady Sussex left the sum of £5,000 together with some plate to found a new college at Cambridge University to be called the Lady Frances Sidney Sussex College. Her executors Sir John Harington and Henry Grey, 6th Earl of Kent, supervised by Archbishop John Whitgift, as of 2014, the college had an endowment of £36. m. and total capital and reserves of £108. m. By the early 19th century, the original red brick was unfashionable. H. Lyon, and somewhat at odds with the colleges original Puritan ethos, at the beginning of the twentieth century, E. H. Griffiths wrote a ten verse song dedicated to Sidney Sussex, each verse systematically identifies, then dismisses other Cambridge colleges for their faults, before settling on Sidney as the best college of all. Sidney Sussex is recognised as one of the smaller, more classical Cambridge colleges and its current student body consists of roughly 350 undergraduate students and 190 graduates. Academically, Sidney Sussex has tended towards a position in the unofficial Tompkins Table. However, the college has traditionally excelled in subjects, notably Mathematics, History, Engineering. It is also known for the standard of pastoral support from the Tutorial team. The college ranks fourth highest amongst Cambridge colleges in Nobel Prizes won by alumni, the Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge was nominated for a 2013 Gramophone Award in recognition of their disc of the music of Thomas Weelkes. The choir also tours regularly, most recently to Germany, in December 2016, in the television show University Challenge, Sidney Sussex had a winning team in both 1971 and 1978–79. The 1978 team, comprising John Gilmore, John Adams, David Lidington, the college last appeared on the television show in 2015. It is known for producing a well-regarded May Ball for a smaller college, notably, students created an artificial lake and canal in 2010, when the ball had a Venetian theme, to enable punting at the landlocked college. Recent themes have included Light, and Beyond, as with many of the smaller colleges, Sidney Sussex does not run a May Ball every year, instead running a biennial May Ball, on even numbered years. On odd numbered years, the college hosted an Arts Festival. Notable guest speakers at the Sidney Arts Festival include Stephen Fry, however, for 2017 it was decided instead to hold a June Event

26.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state‍—‌the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government

27.
Physician
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Both the role of the physician and the meaning of the word itself vary around the world. Degrees and other qualifications vary widely, but there are common elements, such as medical ethics requiring that physicians show consideration, compassion. Around the world the term refers to a specialist in internal medicine or one of its many sub-specialties. This meaning of physician conveys a sense of expertise in treatment by drugs or medications and this term is at least nine hundred years old in English, physicians and surgeons were once members of separate professions, and traditionally were rivals. Henry VIII granted a charter to the London Royal College of Physicians in 1518 and it was not until 1540 that he granted the Company of Barber/Surgeons its separate charter. In the same year, the English monarch established the Regius Professorship of Physic at the University of Cambridge, newer universities would probably describe such an academic as a professor of internal medicine. Hence, in the 16th century, physic meant roughly what internal medicine does now, currently, a specialist physician in the United States may be described as an internist. Another term, hospitalist, was introduced in 1996, to describe US specialists in internal medicine who work largely or exclusively in hospitals, such hospitalists now make up about 19% of all US general internists, who are often called general physicians in Commonwealth countries. In such places, the more general English terms doctor or medical practitioner are prevalent, in Commonwealth countries, specialist pediatricians and geriatricians are also described as specialist physicians who have sub-specialized by age of patient rather than by organ system. Around the world, the term physician and surgeon is used to describe either a general practitioner or any medical practitioner irrespective of specialty. This usage still shows the meaning of physician and preserves the old difference between a physician, as a practitioner of physic, and a surgeon. The term may be used by state medical boards in the United States of America, in modern English, the term physician is used in two main ways, with relatively broad and narrow meanings respectively. This is the result of history and is often confusing and these meanings and variations are explained below. In the United States and Canada, the term physician describes all medical practitioners holding a professional medical degree, the American Medical Association, established in 1847, as well as the American Osteopathic Association, founded in 1897, both currently use the term physician to describe members. However, the American College of Physicians, established in 1915, does not, its title uses physician in its original sense. A physician trained in the United States has either a Doctor of Medicine degree, all boards of certification now require that physicians demonstrate, by examination, continuing mastery of the core knowledge and skills for a chosen specialty. Recertification varies by particular specialty between every seven and every ten years, graduates of osteopathic medical schools in the United States should not be confused with osteopaths, who are trained in the European and Commonwealth nations. Their training is similar to physical therapy and they are not licensed to prescribe medications or perform surgeries, also in the United States, the American Podiatric Medical Association defines podiatrists as physicians and surgeons that fall under the department of surgery in hospitals

28.
Crossbencher
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A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and in the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and opposition benches, where crossbenchers sit in the chamber, Crossbench members of the British House of Lords are not aligned to any particular party. Until 2009, these included the Law Lords appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876, in addition, former Speakers of the House of Commons and former Lord Speakers of the House of Lords, who by convention are not aligned with any party, also sit as Crossbenchers. Although non-affiliated members, and members of parties, sometimes physically sit on the crossbenches. An increasing number of Crossbenchers have been created peers for non-political reasons, since its establishment in May 2000, the House of Lords Appointments Commission has nominated a total of 67 non-party-political life peers who joined the House of Lords as Crossbenchers. From April 2007 to 2009, the number of Crossbenchers was higher than the number of Conservatives in the Lords for the first time. Although the Lords Spiritual also have no party affiliation, they are not considered Crossbenchers and do not sit on the crossbenches, the current convenor is David Hope, Baron Hope of Craighead, who took the office in September 2015. While convenors are not part of the channels, they have been included in their discussions in recent years. Unlike the United Kingdom, in Australia the term is applied to those parties, the last few federal elections have seen an increase in the size and power of the crossbench in both houses of Parliament. The resulting 76–74 margin entitled Labor to form a minority government, derryn Hinch won a seat, while Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, Family Firsts Bob Day, and Jacqui Lambie retained their seats. The number of crossbenchers increased by two to a record 20, the Liberal/National Coalition government required at least nine additional votes to reach a Senate majority. The term crossbencher generally is not used for the Canadian Parliament or any of the provincial or territorial legislatures, instead, any party that is not the governing party is an opposition party, with the largest of these designated the official opposition. All opposition parties other than the opposition are called third parties. Third parties and independents sit on the side of the chamber. Parties require a number of seats to have official party status for procedural purposes. Although parties without official party status behave like political parties, their members are treated as individual members, third parties have been common in Canadian legislatures since the 1920s. In particular, legislatures often contain members of an ideological party, beginning in 2016, the Independent Senators Group was formed in the Senate of Canada, fulfilling a similar purpose as Crossbenchers. The ISG was created partly as a response to Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus decision to appoint more non-partisan Senators, similar to Crossbenchers in the UK, the group has chosen a leader, and does not use a whipping system

29.
European Economic Community
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The European Economic Community was a regional organisation which aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states. It was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, upon the formation of the European Union in 1993, the EEC was incorporated and renamed as the European Community. In 2009 the ECs institutions were absorbed into the EUs wider framework and it gained a common set of institutions along with the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community as one of the European Communities under the 1965 Merger Treaty. In 1993, a single market was achieved, known as the internal market, which allowed for the free movement of goods, capital, services. In 1994, the market was formalised by the EEA agreement. This agreement also extended the market to include most of the member states of the European Free Trade Association. Upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 and this was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, were collectively made to constitute the first of the three pillars of the European Union, which the treaty also founded. The EEC was also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking countries and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it was renamed as such in 1993. In 1951, the Treaty of Paris was signed, creating the European Coal and this was an international community based on supranationalism and international law, designed to help the economy of Europe and prevent future war by integrating its members. In the aim of creating a federal Europe two further communities were proposed, a European Defence Community and a European Political Community. While the treaty for the latter was being drawn up by the Common Assembly, the ECSC parliamentary chamber, after the Messina Conference in 1955, Paul Henri Spaak was given the task to prepare a report on the idea of a customs union. The so-called Spaak Report of the Spaak Committee formed the cornerstone of the negotiations at Val Duchesse castle in 1956. Together with the Ohlin Report the Spaak Report would provide the basis for the Treaty of Rome, in 1956, Paul Henri Spaak led the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at the Val Duchesse castle, which prepared for the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The conference led to the signature, on 25 March 1957, the resulting communities were the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. These were markedly less supranational than the communities, due to protests from some countries that their sovereignty was being infringed. The first formal meeting of the Hallstein Commission, was held on 16 January 1958 at the Chateau de Val-Duchesse, the EEC was to create a customs union while Euratom would promote co-operation in the nuclear power sphere. The EEC rapidly became the most important of these and expanded its activities, one of the first important accomplishments of the EEC was the establishment of common price levels for agricultural products. In 1968, internal tariffs were removed on certain products, another crisis was triggered in regard to proposals for the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy, which came into force in 1962

30.
Michael Foot
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Michael Mackintosh Foot PC FRSL was a British Labour Party politician and man of letters. Foot began his career as a journalist, becoming editor of Tribune on several occasions, and he co-wrote the classic polemic against appeasement of Hitler, Guilty Men, under a pseudonym. Foot became a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and served again from 1960 until 1992 and he was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Employment under Harold Wilson in 1974, and he later served as Leader of the House of Commons under James Callaghan. He was also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under Callaghan from 1976 to 1980, Foot was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983. His strongly left-wing political positions and criticisms of vacillating leadership made him an unpopular leader, not particularly telegenic, he was also nicknamed Worzel Gummidge for his rumpled appearance. A right-wing faction of the party broke away to form the Social Democratic Party, among the books he authored are Guilty Men, a biography of Jonathan Swift and a biography of Aneurin Bevan. Foot was born in Lipson Terrace, Plymouth, Devon, the fifth of seven children of Isaac Foot and Eva, Isaac Foot was a solicitor and founder of the Plymouth law firm Foot and Bowden. Isaac Foot was an member of the Liberal Party and was Liberal Member of Parliament for Bodmin in Cornwall from 1922–24 and again from 1929–35. He was the uncle of campaigning journalist Paul Foot and charity worker Oliver Foot, Foot was educated at Plymouth College Preparatory School, Forres School in Swanage, and Leighton Park School in Reading. When he left Forres School, the headmaster sent a letter to his father in which he said “he has been the boy in the school in every way”. He then went on to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Wadham College, Foot was the President of the Oxford Union. He also took part in the ESU USA Tour, on graduating with a second-class degree in 1934, he took a job as a shipping clerk in Birkenhead. Foot was profoundly influenced by the poverty and unemployment that he witnessed in Liverpool, a Liberal up to this time, Foot was converted to socialism by Oxford University Labour Club president David Lewis, a Canadian Rhodes scholar, and others. I knew him when I was a Liberal played a part in converting me to socialism, Foot joined the Labour Party and first stood for parliament at the age of 22 in the 1935 general election, when he contested Monmouth. During this election Foot criticised the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, in his election address Foot contended that the armaments race in Europe must be stopped now. Foot also supported unilateral disarmament, after multilateral disarmament talks at Geneva had broken down in 1933, the campaigns members were Stafford Crippss Socialist League, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain. In a 1955 interview, Foot ideologically identified as a libertarian socialist, on the recommendation of Aneurin Bevan, Foot was soon hired by Lord Beaverbrook to work as a writer on his Evening Standard. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Foot volunteered for military service and it was suggested in 2011 that he became a member of the secret Auxiliary Units

Arms of Strode: Argent, a chevron between three conies courant sable, detail from mural monument to Ursula Strode (d.1635), 1st wife of Sir John III Chichester (d.1669) of Hall and daughter of Sir William II Strode (d.1637). Bishop's Tawton Church

Liberal poster c.1905-10, Clockwise from the left: Joseph Chamberlain abandons his commitment to old age pensions; Chancellor Austen Chamberlain threatens duties on consumer items which had been removed by Gladstone (in the picture on the wall); Chinese indentured labour in South Africa; John Bull contemplates his vote; Joseph Chamberlain and Arthur Balfour (who favoured retaliatory tariffs) wearing top hats

Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies led an international committee in negotiations with Nasser in September 1956, which sought to achieve international management of the Canal. The mission was a failure.